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TheLadders Sued for ‘Breach of Contract’ and More

TheLadders.com, the formerly “Only $100k+ jobs” board, has been sued in U.S. District Court for breach of contract among other things, reports headhunter and career guru Nick Corcodilos.

The suit alleges:

Unlike other online job boards which are free to join, TheLadders charged a premium subscription fee to members for ‘hand-screen[ing] every job post and recruiter so you only see real, open $100k+ jobs in your area.’ In reality, however, its job postings were not hand-screened. They were ‘scraped’ from the Internet without authorization from employers or recruiters, and the employment opportunities were not for ‘real, open $100k+ jobs.’ Moreover, TheLadders had no process in place to ensure that these posted positions ever truly existed, remained open, or that they met its minimum advertised salary criteria of $100k+.

TheLadders has had a long and schadenfreude-filled history for those of us who follow job board industry news. After a few years as the “only $100k+ jobs” job board, where members paid a premium subscription to access said jobs, it launched a Signature program that cost even more money but “guaranteed” each participant a job offer within six months. Around the same time, TheLadders held a blogger junket in which it paid a bunch of writers and bloggers to visit NYC and learn about the good parts of the company.

ETA 3/14/13: Lisa Hagendorf, VP of public relations for TheLadders, submitted this statement from TheLadders CEO and cofounder Alex Douzet:

We believe the allegations set forth in this complaint to be false. In fact, our employees review job listings before they are posted to our site, as has always been our protocol. Additionally, we have a team of specialists who review resumes and provide individualized critiques. This complaint lacks merit, and we fully intend to take the necessary legal steps to dispose of it quickly. In the interim, we remain steadfast in our commitment to providing the best job-matching experience for employers and job seekers, while serving as the fastest-growing source for career-driven professionals.